RADAMA'S MILITARY POLICY.

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Mr. Hastie had introduced wheat, oats, and barley into the country, and saw small patches of these growing luxuriantly.

The females (of the Sacalave country) are very robust. They are largely formed about the chest, and the lower part of the spine is remarkably prominent. Yet neither of these protuberances produce so unsightly an appearance as the ill shapes that distinguish the women of the northern part of Boyana. Few of them are of a complexion much removed from the Caffre-color. Their dress is often very slovenly and disgusting.

N. B. Both these journeys were performed northward from the capital (Tananarivo), and the whole country either submitted to Radama or was conquered, though he had but little fighting. His army was so powerful, and the manner of his proceeding so judicious and humane, that all the tribes found it best to submit. He placed portions of his army at different places, to keep his new subjects quiet, or to protect them from freebooters. In every case he required the people to surrender their arms to him, as they would thenceforth not need them, and as an inducement he gave their owners a fair price for them. This was a stroke of wise policy.

The country in general is alternately hilly, mountainous, or swampy and poor, though many places are rich in ricegrounds, pasturage, &c., and much of the land is capable of extensive cultivation. It is, however, very thinly peopled. The houses of the inhabitants are wretched hovels, being often made of the leaves of the rofia-palm, stuck in the ground, meeting at the top, and open at both ends. The best of them are planked; others, of a middling kind, are wattled, and miserably thatched with grass.

Mr. Hastie gives no account of the geology of the country. It appears generally well watered by innumerable streams, rivers, and lakes, but is in most parts bare of fine timber, in room of which there is much long grass and underwood. The fuel of the people is grass, moss, and cowdung; in some places brushwood. Their food is rice, sweet potatoes, manioc, plantains, beef, wild fowls of the Guinea species, which are every where in great plenty, fish, wild hogs, monkeys, &c. The wild cattle are sometimes very large. One carcass loaded seventeen men, and four more were required to carry the fat and such of the intestines as they used.

266

CLIMATE OF MADAGASCAR.

The range of the thermometer was from 52°, at sunrise, to 98°; and the climate not good, as very many of the soldiers fell ill, and not a few died. Great numbers were left in sick quarters, though they appear to have been well fed, and well cared for, by the king, who maintained a rigid discipline, forbidding all plunder, and punishing the slightest theft with death. He held many cobars (or public meetings), at which he required the attendance of all his conquered or submitting subjects; when, also, they took the oath of allegiance or fidelity to him. On these occasions he proclaimed himself king of Madagascar, made known his laws, and the terms of protection, which were submission, and the payment of a tenth of their property. He every where denounced most firmly against the slave-trade, both in exportation and importation, and punished either with death. Rain was not frequent during the campaigns. They had occasional lightning and thunder, and wind, but nothing remarkable. Almost all the diseases of the soldiery were fevers, and the king himself returned home ill of one. There are

no regular roads in the country, only occasionally a foottrack.

Radama sent twenty youths on board one of our ships of war, and six on another, to learn seamanship, and other arts of civilized life. He appears to have listened with much deference to Mr. Hastie's advice on many occasions, and the latter seems to have acted with great wisdom and prudence.

CHAPTER LIV.

A Bullock-ship arrives at the Mauritius-The Deputation sail for Madagascar-Arrive at Tamatave-Proceed towards TananarivoVarious Circumstances and Incidents by the Way-Fortified Villages Tombs-Arrival and Reception at the Capital-Death of the Rev. Daniel Tyerman-Death of the King of Madagascar-Missionaries' Letter to Mr. Bennet.

June 20. HEARING that a bullock-transport had arrived from Madagascar, we went down to see her; and, having no better alternative, engaged with the captain to take us with him on his return. She is a stout brig, of two hundred tons burthen, and fitted solely for the trade in which she is

ARRIVAL AT TAMATAVE.

267

engaged. Nothing could well exceed the filthiness and stench of the vessel, being crowded with horned cattle, in this hot climate, and all restless after their voyage. In landing them, a rope is put round the bottom of the horns of each, when, by a clumsy contrivance, it is hauled up by the neck, swung over the side of the ship, and let down into the water, to swim for its life till it reaches the shore. Booms are placed on either flank of the course which they are intended to take, about twelve or fourteen feet apart, to keep the herd in line. The strong ones easily effect their passage, but the young and the feeble are accompanied by men in a boat, to hold their heads above water, and otherwise prevent them from being drowned. Those which we saw landed had had a stormy voyage of sixteen days between the two islands, and appeared very lean and spiritless, though naturally large and strong animals. Many had died on the passage. The cost of bullocks being about five dollars a head at Madagascar, and the selling price here about forty dollars each, such cargoes often turn out very profitable ventures.

July 3. We sailed from the Mauritius the 29th of June, and after an easy, but certainly not a comfortable, passage, arrived at Tamatave, this day. On entering the harbor we saw the remains of a vessel, recently wrecked, lying on the reef.

[A few weeks after this, Mr. Bennet, on his return from the interior, to re-embark for the Mauritius, saw on the same reef the wreck of the very vessel (the Meteor) which brought his friend Mr. Tyerman and himself to Madagascar, at the date aforementioned. The crew had been

saved.]

Immediately on landing, we were met by our missionary friend, Mr. Jones, who came from the capital (Tananarivo) thus far, to escort us thither. We found also a letter from the king, waiting for our arrival, whereby we were welcomed to Madagascar, and invited to present ourselves at his court, as early as might be convenient. We were introduced to quarters in the town, appointed, as marshal Robin (a French gentleman in the service of Radama, and holding the second rank in the state) informed us, by express orders from the king. Directions also had been issued, that the means of travelling into the interior should be provided for us, from stage to stage; a circumstance of great advantage to stran. gers, in a country where there are no roads.

268

JOURNEY INTO THE INTERIOR.

HERE the journal of the deputation must end :—the cause will appear in the sequel. Mr. Tyerman and Mr. Bennet left Tamatave on the 5th of July, and after a toilsome, painful, and occasionally dangerous journey, by land and water, across lakes and rivers, through forests and jungles, over mountains and plains, including every variety of inland scenery, from the wildest to the most cultivated that a country emerging from barbarism could present, they arrived at Tananarivo, the royal city, on the 21st of the same month, -at the distance of nearly three hundred miles, in a southwest direction, from the place where they had disembarked, which lies on the eastern coast, about midway between the north and south points of the island. All the way they were accompanied by a guard of twenty native soldiers, appointed by the king, besides a considerable number (varying according to circumstances) of hired carriers of their personal vehicles (a kind of palanquins), their luggage, and sometimes their canoes, when the latter were to be transported over land from lake to lake, or pushed along through shoals and straits. These bearers were very moderately paid for their labor, three dollars satisfying each man for his share of sixteen days' hard work, and the journey back again to their homes. Besides this, a bullock was occasionally given them, which they cooked so economically that they might be said to eat it up whole, except the bones and horns; neither skin nor intestines escaping their invincible teeth, or revolting their imperturbable stomachs.

At the numerous villages through which they passed, the deputation, as a matter of course, took up their quarters at the house of the chief man, who always supplied them with a quantity of rice, a live bullock, or other provisions; expecting and receiving, as was due, compensation in the form of presents, proportionately valuable to himself, yet sufficiently cheap for the travellers well to afford such acknowledgments of his hospitality. In every village they observed a wooden pole, terminating in a point, on which were suspended from one to ten pairs of bullocks' horns. These were memorials of the circumcision of so many boys belonging to the principal inhabitants. In the dwellings sometimes they had other records of births, namely, bullocks' tails suspended from the ceilings, according to the number of children. In their burying-places, on the tombs or graves of their friends, the survivors fixed, upon stones or posts, all the

FORTIFIED VILLAGES IN MADAGASCAR.

269

norns of the bullocks slain at the feast of their interment, which were according to the riches of that kind in the family.

Many of the villages were fortified with strong stockades, and broad, deep ditches. They, as well as the large towns, are frequently built on steep sides of the hills, and must have been formidable positions to enemies so indifferently supplied with engines of assault and destruction as the people were till of late years. Their intercourse, however, with Europeans for some time past, and especially the extraordinary means by which Radama has raised himself above his rude predecessors, disciplined his savage troops, and aggrandized his empire, have rendered impotent, and, consequently, obsolete, these wooden defences, which are every where falling into decay.

As the travellers approached the capital these petty fortresses were more frequent. In forming such bulwarks nothing was more curious than what might be called the gateway, which consisted of a narrow entrance, between rough-piled walls of crags and rocky fragments. The door itself was a circular stone, like that employed by iron-toolgrinders, but of great bulk and circumference, kept in its place between two strong pillars, planted before the opening. In case of danger this stone was used to be rolled in front of the entrance, which it completely blocked up. This, which required the force of a number of men to move and fix in its portal, might be done within the village-walls, where as many persons as were necessary might approach it; but, on the outside, the long passage to it, across the moat, was so straight, that not more than one at a time could at tempt to push it back, and thus effect a breach. In these defenced places there are folds for securing the cattle, which are driven every night, or when attack is apprehended, into square pits, five or six feet deep, and large in proportion to the number to be accommodated. Into these the herd descend, and return from them, by a few steps; and close upon the entrance there is an inclosure which contains their fodder.

There are many slaves in Madagascar. Criminals of sundry descriptions are liable, with their wives and children, to be sold into bondage. Their lot, however, is not particularly hard, as they are employed entirely in ordinary and domestic occupations; and are, in reality, mere menial ser